Hey Mom! (C'mon, let's be honest we all know it's just you)
The weirdest thing just happened to me. I was thinking of that song New York Groove and then I clicked the play button on my keyboard and that song came on. Freaky! And it's really funny because I was planning on writing about living in the big city in this post.
So, I (Blurred Lines just came on, dance interlude) have been living in the city since September and it is now February so that's…uh…carry the one…5 months and I have to say…I STILL HAVE NO CLUE WHAT I'M DOING. I mean I normally just go to school on the bus and then bus back home and then travel back to my cozy small town on weekends to visit PattyCake so I have my routine I like to stick to and I have mastered it. But lately I've been expanding my horizons a bit and have found that growing up in a small town has given me a sort of handicap. For instance, last week after school a friend from class and I caught the bus together (that's right! A friend!) and then went into the downtown mall, which I have been too scared to go into, to walk through to the LRT station I didn't know existed. And this adventure was enough to blow my mind so just imagine how much I freaked out when I saw that this mall has FLOATING ESCALATORS! Yeah, you read that right. FLOATING. Like the staircases in Harry Potter. Like I was actually waiting for one of them to whip itself around and attach to a different wall. I guess people don't understand what I'm talking about when I say floating escalators and what I mean is this; escalators that are floating! Okay, no for real they are escalators that are only supported by the top and bottom so there's nothing beside them. I know that you probably don't see what the big deal is but I have only ever been on escalators that have like a staircase beside them (like in the LRT stations where I run up the staircase to race the people on the escalator because I'm in suuuuuuch good shape) or benches all around the bottom and walls built up so that you can't walk underneath. Does that make sense? I asked my friend to take a picture of me on it but he thought I was joking :( Oh yeah! And there's like escalators above other escalators and even that is like too much for me.
Another incident I encountered just yesterday included Safeway, a cart and $100 of groceries. So I hadn't gone grocery shopping really since this term started. I was just eating like soup and cereal for a month. Well I did stop in at the grocery store once after school but I couldn't buy much since I was taking it on the bus. So this was my first real time grocery shopping this term. The last time I did a large grocery shopping trip I just used a basket which was a mistake since I then had to carry a heavy, overflowing basket around the entire store. And of course I can never find anything so I walk through the Safeway like a dozen times. But anyways I have never gotten a cart at Safeway before. The grocery store I go to at home just has normal carts. Like you just grab one and put your groceries in it. Not these carts. You have to put money in these carts (and they don't even push themselves which is totally bogus! Like if I gotta pay for you, you could help push yourself at least). So I go to the carts and I'm like alright I choose you to carry my food, let's go. I tug on the cart and it doesn't budge. It is attached by a chain to all of the over carts! So then I try pulling the chain out like okay I only need one, thanks. Doesn't budge. A middle-aged woman comes in then and I see she puts a coin into a slot in the cart handle. Of course she does this after giving me a sort of weird look. A look that read "jeez, this girl doesn't know how to get a cart, good thing she has cute hair (I just got a haircut, thanks for noticing)." So then I'm like what the fuck kind of grocery store is this that I have to pay to carry my groceries in a wheeled basket? But I got a gift card for my birthday so I wasn't about to go anywhere else. Plus I was starving, like I had barely eaten in three weeks. So I grab my wallet out of my purse (it's a new wallet. It's pink.) and open the change pocket and I'm like alright you stupid cart, how much you charge? Deciding that I'm going start low and go higher like in a bidding war, I pull out a quarter. Lucky guess! Goes in like magic. Actually, goes in like a quarter in a quarter-sized slot. So then I can pull the chain out and I then I have a cart! And then I bought a cart-full of groceries which cost $100! But it was discount day, which was a nice surprise, and I had a $50 gift card from Grandma and Grandpa (thanks guys!). So then I take my groceries out to Petey and load em up in the backseat and then had to take my cart to the cart area in the parking lot. I absolutely hate it when people leave carts lying around in the parking lot. Like seriously, be a good person. I normally grab all the carts I come across and put them in the cart area. Because I am a really good person. So then I put this cart back and I'm like hey I'm gonna chain it to this other one so that they are neat and organized. Pushing this chain into place, something magical happens. My quarter pops out. I get my money back when I put my cart back. How genius is that? Safeway! Your genius is showing!
After grabbing groceries I saw that my gas tank only had a quarter in it so I was like whoa it's discount day so I can get gas right here at the Safeway gas station! So I pull up to the pump and it says that I can either pay at the pump or prepay inside. And I'm like well I don't know how much I need and PattyCake always pays at the pump so I'm sure I can figure it out. Yes, that's right, I've never paid at the gas pump before. I always gas up and then go into the convenience store and pay after. So at first I'm sticking my Safeway card in the wrong slot haha this machine had almost no instructions and it just kept saying "Please Re-Insert Card" and I'd put it in and then it would go "Quickly Remove Card" so then I'm doing this over and over again and thinking wow like how fast do I have to remove it? I don't think I can go any faster. And then I see the little scanner thing where you scan the barcode on your Safeway card. Then I'm laughing at myself for how retarded I am. As I'm sure they will be when they watch their security footage. I can just see it, couple of middle-aged men sitting around eating doughnuts "Paul! Come look at this blonde trying to put her Safeway card in the credit card slot! She does have a real cute haircut though.." Then it tells me to select which gas I want and I'm like just regular is fine. Then I start pumping until it's full. I go to pay and it asks me how much fuel I would like. And my total was something like $45 so I'm like uhh I think I'll take $45. I press the 4 and then it tells me to insert my card so I put my debit card in, enter my pin and then it tells me to start fuelling my car. So then I'm like uhh he's full of fuel, he can't fit anymore. I then decided to just go into the office and try to pay. I had to hand in a Visa card I found on the cement at the pump anyways so it wasn't a big deal. I just pretended that the pump was confused and that I knew what I was doing. The man was very proud of me for handing in this Visa card and I just wanted to be like well did you see me organize the carts earlier? So I then paid for my gas inside and went home to check my online banking app and saw that it didn't charge me twice so that's good.
So those are my examples of why I'm not ready for city living. It's just too complicated. Escalators all over the place, security deposit carts, confusing gas pumps. I can't handle all that shit. And the other day an older man was making cat noises at me on the LRT. I just reread that sentence and it totally sounds like there was an old man meowing at me. No. He was making these noises like when you're calling a cat like you kind of click your tongue or whatever. I can't explain it. Anyways, I heard someone making this noise and I thought oh my gosh! Someone has kitties on the train! I wanna pet the kitties! Cause like I love little kitties. When I first met PattyCake, his roommate had baby kitties and I named them Beyonce and Nicki Minaj. Anywheres, oh shit I just typed "anywheres" instead of anyways. Haha it's 2 AM, give me a break. Anyways* I'm sitting on the LRT with my cute haircut and looking around for kitties when I see this man is looking at me while making these noises. Holy shit, I'm the kitty. Let's just say when it came to my stop, I ran off that crazy train.
I would like to end this post by just stating again that I am just a small town girl, living in a lonely world. I took the LRT going anywhere..
Haha Journey reference in case you don't get it. If you didn't get that…kill yourself.
Just kitten! I love you no matter what references you may or may not get.
May the Force be with you!
Ashlynn
